


I Feel We're Close Enough

by freckledpianoman, MoonlightShines (Thatkillervibe)



Category: Stargirl (TV 2020)
Genre: Bickering, Cinematic ass bathtub scene, Cuddles, F/M, First Aid, Hurt/Comfort, Important Use of Dryer Machines, Mention of blood, POV Beth Chapel, Post 1x13, Rick is Soft, injuries, season one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:20:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26018653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freckledpianoman/pseuds/freckledpianoman, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thatkillervibe/pseuds/MoonlightShines
Summary: “It hurts?”“Yeah. A bit.”Rick and Beth patch each other up after the Battle of Project New America.
Relationships: Beth Chapel & Rick Tyler, Beth Chapel/Rick Tyler
Comments: 7
Kudos: 54





	I Feel We're Close Enough

“Has the stinging subsided yet?” 

He grimaced when Beth swiped more dried blood from his hairline. She wasn’t sure if it was the sight of all the red or the fact it’s been over ten minutes and they’re nowhere near getting it all off.

“Not really,” he muttered. 

After Courtney told Beth about the way Grundy flung Rick around like a ragdoll, she was shocked he hadn’t completely doubled over. 

“Do you not feel pain when you’re Hourman?” She threw away the last of the used alcohol swabs from the little two-packet into the trash. There was so much to disinfect. 

“Uh,” he said. “Not really in the way I would if I wasn’t, no.”

Rick still had his suit on. His cape still rested over his broad shoulders and the boots were still on his feet. But his hourglass remained idle on its chain. No souped-up energy pulsing through him, no magical gold dust to infuse Rick with long-lasting endurance. He wasn’t Hourman right now. 

“But you feel it once it’s over,” she concluded quietly.  She tilted his chin up. He didn’t need to say anything. She already knew.

Beth pressed the pads of her fingers gently against the purpling bruise beneath Rick’s eye. He hissed, tightening his grip against the Whitmore-Dugan dryer in the bathroom where Mrs. Dugan had made him sit so she could assess his damage. Beth volunteered to help Rick with his injuries, knowing the basics for medic care from growing up in a healthcare household. She really wanted to do it too, at least with this, she could be useful. Mrs. Whitmore promised to come back to help, but Pat really took a beating. She wanted to make sure her husband was okay first. They understood. 

“There?” she asked softly, careful to not add any extra pressure. The face cloth beside his lap was covered in blood, but it seemed no matter how much they wiped away, there were more cuts and gashes to be found, littered all over his neck and face. 

Rick nodded. 

“It hurts?” 

“Yeah. A bit.” 

It had to be more than a bit. He was good at masking the pain. The way he was holding his ribs. She still felt like they should be bringing him to the hospital. 

Beth felt a bit woozy herself. Her head throbbed from that brutal slam into Mrs. Dugan’s office wall, and her stomach had been tying itself into knots ever since she witnessed Mike’s graphic traffic violation. She knew they had to put an end to Icicle. He had hurt her. He had hurt Joey. And Courtney’s family and thousands of other people but—She had always imagined justice in an idealist way. With evil behind bars, and the villains put away to pay for their wrongdoings. Everything today just ended so...violently. And abrupt. 

It was a lot to take in. 

“Beth?” Rick jolted her out of her mind’s daze. 

“What?” 

“Beth,” he repeated. “Are _ you  _ okay?” 

She swallowed her apprehension and nodded, briefly glancing up to make eye contact with him. 

“All good.” She nodded.

He watched her through tired eyes like he was waiting for her to change her mind—For her composure to shatter and for her to break down. People always tended to look at her like that, like one wrong move would shatter her porcelain heart.

“You’re sure?” he asked, almost whispering. 

“Sure.” 

She forced a lopsided smile to show him. 

_ See?  _ She was fine. 

Turning away, she went through Courtney’s mom’s first aid kit to find more alcohol swabs. One of his cuts bled again. A sudden rush of tears came to her, blurring her vision. She sniffed, wiping them away quickly. She didn’t want him to see. 

“Seriously, Beth—are you okay?” 

“My head hurts, is all,” she said after a moment, shrugging it off. “I banged my head a while ago.” 

“You  _ what?”  _ He tensed right away, eyes bugged out as if she told him she had a terminal illness or something. 

_ “Rick," _ she chided. “I said I’m fine. Let’s worry about you first.” 

Rick slapped a bandaid on his face like that would fix everything and hopped down from the dryer. 

Beth frowned. “Rick.” 

He groaned but walked it off with a limp. He pointed at his seat. “Get on the dryer.” 

“What?” 

“Get on the dryer, Beth.” 

“The only thing I could do for a headache is to take some painkillers, I’m seriously fine.” She shook her head, ignoring the surge of pain she got whenever she moved it.

Rick muttered something under his breath, rolling his eyes, and then before Beth could process it, he picked her up. She let out a squeak, protesting—but soon gave up, unable to fight against his stubborn insistence. He made her settle into the very same spot he’d been sitting in not a minute before.

He levelled his gaze, and all Beth could take in was his concern overshadowing the dirt and grime caked over his face. 

“Where does it hurt? Tell me.” He put his battered hands over the knees of her jeans. “I told you. It’s your turn.” 

“Like I said, it’s just a headache. God, you’re such a mom friend.”

Rick raised an eyebrow.  _ “I’m _ the mom friend?” 

“You are,” she sassed, tongue in cheek. “I don’t go around picking up girls and putting them on dryers like four-year-olds.” 

“My concern for you makes me a mom friend? I think you’re forgetting that it was  _ you  _ taking care of  _ me _ like two seconds ago.”

“You have Grundy’s spit all over your face.” 

“I  _ did _ , and then someone wiped it off.”

“Don’t forget those cuts are subject to reopen at any second. No cuts on me, just a headache.”

“Yeah, well you know what can cause headaches? Migraines and like, aneurysms and shit. Dangerous stuff.”

“I think I’d know if I was having an aneurysm.” 

She laughed softly, watching the corners of his lips turn up just barely. It’s been a while since they bickered like this. Probably not since Henry died. Beth kind of missed it, as annoying as it is to listen to him try to convince her of something unreasonably ridiculous. 

“Hey Chuck,” Beth said. “Let’s show Rick who’s the boss here on medical know-how. Am I having an—” her little smile fell right off her face and she stilled. The goggles sitting on her head were useless and blown in. Chuck couldn’t hear her.  _ “Oh.”  _

“What?” he asked softly, furrowing his brows. Beth’s hand twitched in her lap, fingernails digging into her palm.

“Uh—Chuck, he got…” She winced. “He got broken in the fight.” 

_ “What  _ fight?” he asked slowly. 

“So, y’know how Barbara and I were in her office, right?” she asked casually.

He narrowed his eyes at her, the puffy purple one disappearing into the swelling. “....Yeah?” 

“Well, when we were in there, Jordan ended up coming in. And, I was hacking, right?” Her breath picked up. “He didn’t like that. So…” she stared up at the ceiling, willing herself not to cry again. “He iced them. He froze Chuck off me,” she finished. It sounded dull. 

“Beth, what the  _ hell? _ He was in there with you? You didn’t even tell us.” He looked at her the same way people always did when they thought her feelings were hurt.

“There wasn’t time.” 

“There’s always time to make sure you’re not hurt.”

“Well, I didn’t want you to know. I’ve been avoiding it.”

“And why’s that?”

“I’m just,” Beth forced the tremor to leave her voice. “Afraid that…” 

She tried again, Rick’s silence was eerie but she knew he was just giving her the time to collect her thoughts. “Chuck was all I had and now he’s broken. Should I even  _ be _ a part of the JSA? You and Court, and Yolanda get to keep your suits and hourglass and the staff but—” She choked a sob. “It’s  _ over, _ for me. _ ”  _

“Hey.” Rick carefully lifted his hand to her shoulder, gingerly placing it there. “It’s not over. You  _ are _ Dr. Mid-Nite. You always will be. With Chuck or without.” 

Beth shuddered through her next breath and he squeezed encouragingly. A shock of shooting pain went right down her spine from his grip. She gasped, jerking forward slightly.

Rick yanked his hand away as though he burned her. “It hurts?” he panicked. 

She groaned through gritted teeth, tears pricking in her eyes. She nodded, trying to regain the breath she’d lost.

“Is it your shoulder?” 

“And my back.” She dropped the pretending act. 

Rick hesitated. “...Can I look?” 

Beth took a deep breath, nodding. She slid forward to the edge of the dryer, letting him help her down so she stood in front of him. She seemed to curl in on herself as he guided her to turn around so her back faced him. She stared at the cabinets on the Whitmore-Dugan bathroom wall. The doors were open when they went through supplies. Ointments and creams and a gigantic bottle of mouthwash stared back at her as she steeled herself for Rick to touch her.

She felt his hands hovering near her shoulders, taking the collar of her jacket and pulling it slightly.

“Jacket first.” He instructed her gently. 

She took a shuddering breath and nodded, shrugging her shoulders to let him slide it off.

“I’m just gonna lift your shirt, okay?” He asked, gently running his finger along the hem at the bottom of her shirt as she nodded again. Suddenly she didn’t feel much like talking. 

His fingers brushed the small of her back as he lifted the back of her shirt up just barely. She heard him gasp as he looked her over.

“I don’t want to alarm you, Beth, but this is bruised to high hell. You’re not telling me something.” 

She shook her head, tears threatening to spill over. “It’s fine, Rick, don’t worry about it.” Her voice betrayed her, breaking in the middle of the sentence. “Really it’s not that bad it was—” 

He put pressure on the side of her middle back, right above her bra and she jerked.  _ “Ow!”  _

Once the sharp pain hit, Rick’s hands over her tender skin, it just never went away. The hurt was overwhelming, her head, her back, her shoulder, her feelings, the exhaustion, everything. She squeezed her eyes shut and choked on a sob.  _ “It hurts.”  _

Her knees buckled. Rick spun her around, pushed her face into his chest, holding her close as she shuddered through the pain, letting her cry. “Rick, it  _ hurts.”  _

“I know,” he soothed, and his voice sounded just as thick as hers. “I know. I know. It’s okay.” 

She leaned further into his chest, letting him cradle the back of her head and hum into her ear as she trembled. As she started to relax a bit more, he leaned so his head was next to hers.

“What happened, Beth? You can tell me, I just wanna help.”

“He blasted me. He hit me. I was being stupid, I thought I could take him on. It was my fault, Rick. I’m sorry.” She sniffed again. “And the ice was so cold, I thought I was going blind.”

“Hey, you don’t have to apologize,” He insisted, tilting her chin up to meet his eyes. “It wasn’t your fault—none of this was.”

“I was stupid to try to attack Icicle.” 

“Or really freakin’ brave.” 

“I made a dumb decision and I pretty much destroyed my entire reason to be in the JSA. I got Chuck killed.”

“Beth.” He kneeled down on the linoleum tiles so she’d have no choice but to look at him where she was staring at her scuffed shoes. 

“Stop it. You were just trying to protect Barbara, and us. And we all ended up okay, because of  _ you. _ ”

“You’re not mad?”

“Why would I be mad?” he asked softly. “The only person I’m mad at is Jordan for hurting you.”

“Don’t even remind me of him,” she sighed. “When Mike—Oh Rick, this is such a mess.”

She could feel the circling anxiety crowd in, making room in the crooks and crannies her killer migraine hadn’t claimed yet in her head. There was so much to deal with. The body in the kitchen Yolanda had shielded Beth from seeing before it was too late. The collateral damage. She was pretty sure Rick still had some broken ribs! Mike literally killed a man. Not just any man. Courtney’s crush's dad. Oh god,  _ Cameron. _ They made Cameron an _ orphan—  _

“Beth, I’m losing you again.” 

He pressed two white capsules into the palm of her hand. “Here. Take these.” 

“Tylenol isn’t going to fix everything,” she said coldly. Rick stiffened and she took it back. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I said that.” 

“You’re tired,” Rick said. “I’m tired. And we’re kind of both in serious need for medical attention.” He gave her a tiny smirk before straightening up too quickly. 

_ “Shit.”  _ His hand went to his side and he looked a little dizzy. He stumbled back until his calves hit the edge of the bathtub. 

“Uh,” he said, looking into it like he was considering—Oh. He was. “Let me just sit down for a second.” 

What Beth was sure was supposed to be a graceful step into the tub instead resulted in Rick flopping down into the bathtub and banging his elbow on the side.

A surprise giggle flew out of her mouth. She covered it quickly, hiding behind her hands. She really should not be laughing. His eyes refocused from his moment of disorientation, then glinted the tiniest bit despite his obvious discomfort. It felt nice to know he liked seeing her smile. 

She pushed the shower curtains out of the way to help him, working around to not aggravate her own sore spots. It didn’t look like he was able—or willing—to get himself back up, and as long as he looked as winded as he did, Beth didn’t want him to. 

“I’m coming in,” she warned, stepping a foot into the tub in the cramped space between his big Hourman boots. She held out a hand to pull him up but he refused.

“That’s gonna hurt your back,” he said.

“ _ Rick _ . Just let me get you up.”

“No!”

They were really about to go through all this all over again, weren’t they? 

The bathroom door opened, and Barbara poked her head in. Her pleasant motherly smile morphed into a confused grimace.

“What are you doing in my bathtub?!”

Beth gestured at Rick. “He fell.”

“You  _ fell?” _

“Actually I chose to be here. Beth just decided she wants to join me.”

“You practically passed out.” Beth didn’t know why her face was heating up. She continued to defend their compromised position, “I was climbing in here to get him  _ out _ , Mrs. Whitmore.”

Barbara waved her hand like she didn’t really want to hear anymore. 

“Also—” Rick cut in. “Beth is hurt too.”

“Shut up, Rick.”

“Yeah,” he continued, ignoring her. “She has a migraine and her back is banged up.”

“I took the Tylenol. You can’t even stand upright, you’re the one we should be worried about!”

Court’s mom held up a finger. “I really don’t care who’s hurt worse, you both need to go to a hospital.”

Rick crossed his arms, “I was just explaining the bathtub thing! Beth was the one who made it weird.”

Mrs. Whitmore rolled her eyes. “You’re all weird, I don’t know why we’re still arguing about this. Both of you, out of the bathtub and into the car. We’re going to the hospital.”

Beth gave Rick a side glance. “I don’t think he  _ can _ get out.”

“Forget it.” Rick thunked his head back against the faucet. “It’s not like I can afford healthcare anyway.”

Pat suddenly turned the corner into the bathroom and looked between the two, a hand pressed to his side. “Worry about that later, Rick, let’s go before someone bleeds out.” 

“Who’s bleeding out?” Rick asked, wiping his hand on his jeans to avoid showing the blood he’d wiped off his face earlier.

“It could be any one of you, that’s the problem. Let’s go, kids.”

Barbara walked out with Pat, leaving Beth to turn back to Rick. “Are you gonna get up or do I need to carry you to the car?”

Rick scoffed. “You couldn’t carry me if you wanted to.” He shifted like he might try to get up then shook his head. “But you can help me up since you want to so bad.”

Beth laughed softly and reached down to take both his hands.

“This is gonna hurt like hell for the both of us. Let’s just do it on three.”

Beth prepared herself for the inevitable with a shaky exhale. “Okay.”

“One, two  _ three _ .”

She hoisted him up and they both groaned at the same time, using each other’s shoulders to balance out their weight until they stood facing each other and were sure they wouldn’t collapse.

Beth carefully got out of the tub, holding out her hand to help Rick.

“Hopefully we don’t go to my mom’s hospital,” she murmured, earning a soft snort from him.

“I’d pay to see her reaction to this.”

They walked side by side slowly towards the driveway, stepping over debris and broken lamps and plates in the house on the way. Beth stopped for Rick when he felt a sharp pain in his ribs and he steadied her when she tripped over the splintered coffee table. Eventually, after the rest of JSA changed back to their regular clothes, they made it to the car, Beth sliding into the middle seat next to Yolanda. Rick sat down next to her, closing the door as gently as possible and resting his head against the window.

Courtney took shotgun, glancing behind the seat every four seconds to check on Yolanda, looking the most cheerful of the bunch.

Pat started rambling, trying to come up with a half-decent cover story to tell the triage nurse, flicking on the radio to hear what ridiculous make-believe was on the news to excuse the last few hours. Something about an earthquake and satellites. He relaxed at the wheel and Courtney smirked when he joked about not having to crash another one of his vehicles.

The ride felt long, but maybe it was because Yolanda was awfully quiet. Beth felt the exhaustion seep in through her body. She sagged, falling into Rick’s side when they turned a corner. The box on her lap with Chuck, broken, dead, rattled over the bumps. She knew it was silly, but a part of her wished this hospital trip could fix him up too. 

Beth looked up at Rick when he didn’t say anything in a while either, thinking he grew bored of Courtney and Pat’s chattering. His eyes were closed, forehead and messy hair tilted against the side, slumped like the fight in him was finally and truly depleted. Beth’s shoulder twinged when she adjusted her seatbelt so she could lean her head against him.

Beth knew Yolanda was glancing at them from the corner of her eye, but she felt like she didn’t need to really explain herself for cozying up to Rick like he was her personal teddy bear. He was comfortable and warm, she felt just a little bit better being near him like this. 

“We’re going to be fine, guys!” Courtney promised them. 

Beth turned her face to burrow it further into his shoulder, her face turning hot when she felt him unconsciously wrap his arm around her. 

Things were not fine. They just weren’t. Her head throbbed, her back was on fire. She felt phantom chills from that awful cold ice. Chuck would no longer work for her, Rick let his parents’ murder monster out on the loose and Yolanda really hurts inside, lying that she’s pulling through without tears. Things were not fine. They just weren’t.

But the last time Beth went to a hospital, she was alone, bringing a food dish for her mother that didn’t even really thank her properly for it. Now she has a van full of friends to join her for the ride. She has a Yolanda, a Courtney, a Pat. 

She let out a breath and closed her eyes, feeling his arm around her. 

She has a Rick. 

**Author's Note:**

> We were craving soft Hournite!


End file.
